Women and Inequality

Question 1

What were the 3 main laws that restricted women legally?

Answer 1

1. Property laws
2. Marriage laws
3. Political laws

Question 2

What did property laws entail?

Answer 2

A woman’s property became her husband’s through marriage including her body
- husband had right to take advantage of profits that could be achieved through property.

Question 3

Give an example of a women who experienced negatives of strict property laws imposed on women?

Answer 3

Barbara Leigh Smith was British middle class woman who was victim to property laws.

• Husband died leaving her no rights to property in his will so unable to claim his estate because of law.
• Began to study law and form women’s groups.

Question 4

What did marriage laws entail?

Answer 4

• Difficult to obtain divorce, perpetuating limitations women experienced through marriage.

Question 5

What did political laws entail?

Answer 5

• Women unable to vote so no political power

- Thus, unable to provoke change to improve situation.

Question 6

What does the not of ‘separate spheres’ refer to?

Answer 6

• Women belonged to ‘private sphere’ e.g. the house, domestic role
• Men belonged to ‘public sphere’ e.g. breadwinner, the worker
• Biologically based, reproduction vs production.

Question 7

What expectations were attached to women?

Answer 7

• Marriage and dependant on husband (esp. middle class women)
• ‘Angel of the house’ i.e. higher domestic role as mothers and wives/cult of domesticity
• More respectable if married
• Motherhood a woman’s supreme vocation

Question 8

Give an example of a woman who agreed with notion of separate spheres.

Answer 8

Isabella Beeton - ‘ no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife’s badly cooked dinners and untidy ways…a mistress must be thoroughly acquainted with theory and practice of cookery…keeping a comfortable home.’

Question 9

What was the main contribution to women’s economic limitations?

Answer 9

• Lack of access to education so unable to benefit from prosperous job opportunities, reserved for men.

Question 10

How did education vary among classes?

Answer 10

• Different incentives
• Working class more focus on domestic skills and household labour to facilitate breadwinner and his working life
• Middle class more focus on preparing women for role as mothers and wives.

Question 11

How did employment opportunities vary among classes?

Answer 11

• More working class women worked in comparison to middle class. (Women 1/3 total labour force in UK, 1841-1911)
• Work concentrated in agriculture, textiles and domestic service.
• Middle class single women more likely to work, not expectation of married women.
• Argued that ‘surplus of women’ in Britain cause for lack of jobs.

Question 12

What did the rising demand for education among women result in?

Answer 12

• Idea that education was important for economic progression spread across Europe.
• General German Women’s Association 1865 (response to fears of increasing population of single and unemployed middle-class women).

Question 13

Give an example of how middle-class women began formulating movements for justice.

Answer 13

In Edinburgh many primarily middle-class women involved in 'debating societies, anti-slavery campaigns, educational association and later, suffrage societies.'
- suggests fighting for change and justice for others highlighted their won oppression.

Question 14

How did working-class women begin to acknowledge their won oppression?

Answer 14

• Rise of socialist movements.
• Socialism gave rise to idea that feminist issues just as important as issues experienced by general proletariat.
• Clara Zetkins claimed ‘As the worker is subject to the capitalist, so is women subject to man’.

Question 15

What issue derived as a result of working class women attributing their oppression to capitalism?

Answer 15

Reinforced and perpetuated divided between classes. 
(Middle-class women obviously not suffering due to capitalism)

Question 16

How did emergence of campaigns change women’s opportunities in work?

Answer 16

• Professional associations established in 1850s to widen women’s employment opportunities.
• 1851 35% women teachers, by 1911 70%
• 30% of female workforce worked in service sectors by 1914 in France.

Gradual changes taking place to facilitate women to play more active tole in society.

Question 17

What does the term ‘New Woman’ refer to?

Answer 17

• Concept that women’s roles were changing so significantly by the turn of century that a new form of woman was emerging, different to norm.
• Challenged male hegemony.
• These women educated, seeking professional employment (usually middle-class), independent and self reliant, single or sought equal partnership, challenged Victorian dress codes and gender norms.
• ‘Golden Era of Feminism’

Question 18

Give a specific example of how the New Woman was challenged.

Answer 18

Series of cartoons from ‘Punch’ in 1895 ridicule notion of new woman.

Question 19

What was the main incentive behind formation of suffrage groups?

Answer 19

Realisation that political power and right to vote essential to instigate change, socially, economically and legally.

Question 20

When did prominent suffrage movements emerge in different countries?

Answer 20

• American campaigns from 1840s. (American Woman Suffrage Association, focused on vote)
• Britain from 1860s (establishment of National Society for Women’s Suffrage by Lydia Becker at end of decade)
• France 1880s, later due to fears of the risks (Hubertine Auclert, French feminist, cultivated word and reinforced need for women to vote to ‘become full citizens of the Republic’ - 1883, Women’s Suffrage Society in France established)

Question 21

Did suffrage societies all act the same?

Answer 21

No, differences in backgrounds, religion and class produced different approaches to campaigning.

Question 22

How can the 2 main arguments among different female organisations be categorised?

Answer 22

• Individualist (desire for full equality)
• Relational (centred around idea women equal but different, conforms to idea of higher moral role/duty but shouldn’t hold them back from public sphere)

Question 23

When was the vote achieved in different countries?

Answer 23

• Britain 1918 (over 30, married, householders and uni grads)
• Germany 1918
• USA 1920 (racial ideologies meant many states excluded black women)
• France 1944

Question 24

Give another example of a woman who didn’t agree with feminism.

Answer 24

Ivy Pinchbeck believed existence of male and female roles as housewife and breadwinner contributed to liberating women from having to work, enabling them to prioritise domestic role and duties.